ILO's Role in Employment Relations: A South Korea Case Study

This essay evaluates the role and effectiveness of the International Labour Organization (ILO) in promoting positive employment relations, using South Korea as a case study. It begins with the history, mission, and vision of the ILO, emphasizing its focus on social justice, human rights, and international labour standards. The essay explores the ILO's structure, including its tripartite nature and the involvement of member states like South Korea. It analyzes the pros and cons of the ILO's impact, such as promoting worker well-being, providing a framework for fair globalization, and setting decent work standards, as well as challenges like enforcement difficulties and potential economic concerns. The essay examines the ILO's partnership with South Korea, highlighting the country's adoption of ILO guidelines and the introduction of the Decent Work Country Programme. It also addresses the challenges, such as funding issues and the need for stricter legal guidelines. The conclusion summarizes the ILO's role in setting labour standards, its impact on South Korea, and the ongoing need for improvement in promoting social justice for all workers.

Running Head: EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS
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Employment Relations
Student Details:

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The International Labour Organisation (ILO) is referred to a United Nations (UN)
agency that is implemented in order to make sure that advanced social justice are mandatorily
followed by organisations and it also focuses on applying international labour standards in
order to promote recent work conditions. ILO makes sure that positive employment relations
are promoted between organisations and trade unions, work unions and labours (Kelly, 2015).
The purpose of this essay is to evaluate the role of ILO and assess its effectiveness in relation
to its impact on employment relations in a particular country. South Korea is selected in this
essay in order to determine whether ILO has been successful in creating positive employment
relations in the country. This essay will include history, mission, and vision of ILO while
particularly focusing on South Korea as well. The effectiveness of pros and cons will be
analysed along with general evaluation of ability of ILO in promoting and maintaining
employment relations. Lastly, the impact of ILO on South Korea will be analysed based on
the evaluation of facts and arguments and pros and cons to determine its effectiveness in the
country to promote positive employment relations.
In 2019, ILO celebrated its 100th anniversary as it was created in 1919; this
organisation has a substantial role in many historical junctures such as the victory over
apartheid in South Africa, the Great Depression, and creation of Solidarnosc in Poland. The
mission of ILO is focused on promoting worldwide implementation of social justice while
complying with human and labour rights which are internationally recognised and it works on
the vision that in order to achieve universal and lasting peace, enforcement of social justice
principles is crucial (Van Der Heijden, 2018). This organisation assist in advancing economic
as well as working conditions for labours, employers and governments that lead to promoting
lasting progress, prosperity and peace.
Currently, there are 187 member states that are part of an organisation and they set
labour working standards, develop practices and formulate programs that are targeted towards
achieving and promoting decent work conditions for all male and female workers. This
organisation was a part of the Treaty of Versailles which was created after the end of the
World War I (Ilo Global, 2020). The creation of this organisation reflected a common belief
that lasting and universal peace should be achieved by accomplishment and stricter
implementation of social justice principles. The company’s operations are based on its
Constitution that was lasted by the Labour Commission. This commission was working under
the guidance of the head of the “AFL or American Federation of Labour”, Samuel Gompers,
and the United States (US). At the time of its formation, it was comprised of nine countries

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which includes leading nations such as France, Belgium, Japan, the United Kingdom, Cuba,
Poland, Czechoslovakia, the US, and Italy (ILO Global, 2020). All these countries came
together in order to create a tripartite organisation that was considered as one of its kind in
which countries, governments, representatives, employers and workers joined together. In
1991, the Republic of South Korea became a member of ILO in order to comply with its
guidelines to promote health employment relations; it is currently the 11th largest contributor
in the budget of ILO.
ILO was created around 100 years ago and it has achieved major milestones during
this period; the organisation has faced both benefits and challenges in order to accomplishing
its mission of establishing, lasting prosperity and progress by implementation of social justice
principles. The effectiveness of ILO has both pros and cons for its members, employers and
workers. One of the key pros of ILO is that is emphasises on promoting the development of
people as human beings by promoting their well-being (Oelz, 2014). Its actions have been
effective as it is not considered as a commodity and its actions enforce governments to take
measures for promoting wellness of their workers. Another pro of this organisation is that it
offered a legal structure that is targeted towards creating stable and fair globalisation in South
Korea and other member states as well. This assists South Korea in the accomplishment of
development objectives as well as economic growth by stricter implementation of decent
work environment. Labours were not considered as a commodity in a Declaration of
Philadelphia 1944 through the efforts of ILO (ilo, 2020).
The organisation has been effective in setting and accomplishing four key pillar that
were introduced in the Decent Work Agenda which includes social dialogue, rights at work,
employment creation and social protection. The organisation also targeted towards
accomplishing Goal 8 of Sustainable Development Goals 2030 in order to promote inclusive,
sustainable and sustained economic growth. However, there are many cons of
implementation of ILO as well since the organisation has faced many challenges while
accomplishing its mission (Di Ruggiero, Cohen, & Cole, 2014). One of the key challenges is
stricter enforcement of labour standards in different countries. Since countries also have their
own legal guidelines for managing labour relations, it becomes difficult for ILO to provide
policies which are in conjunction with already established laws. Currently, there is lack of
enforcement power available for ILO to make sure that labour standards are followed or else
penalties are imposed on them. Another con is that many perceived the organisation is

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hindering economic development by demanding substantial costs from employers (Selwyn,
2014). These challenges are also available in the case of South Korea as well.
Since the partnership between ILO and the Republic of Korea took place in 1991, this
partnership has benefited the employers and labour unions in the country. A memorandum
was signed between the Ministry of Employment and Labour of South Korea and ILO after
which the country started funding and supporting ILO/Korea Partnership Programme (Ilo,
2020). This partnership has been effective since major changes are brought by the Korean
government in its national laws and practices to comply with ILO guidelines such as
“Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention 1958”, “Worst Forms of Child
Labour Convention 1999”, “Minimum Age Convention 1973”, and “Equal Remuneration
Convention 1951”. The country has also introduced “DWCP (Decent Work Country
Programme)” in 2004 for promoting the improvement and enforcement in equity and rights
of labours, trade unions, and work unions (ILO, 2020).
Another pro is promotion of employment opportunities, extending social protection,
improving labour market governance, and accomplishing decent work conditions that creates
sustainable enterprises. These examples show effectiveness of ILO in South Korea; however,
there are certain challenges or cons of this relationship as well (Doh & Kim, 2014). A good
example is that the government invest substantial portion of taxpayers’ money in funding
ILO rather than improving working conditions of labours. Moreover, there are lack of stricter
legal guidelines that allows trade unions, work unions and labour unions to enforce
employers in mitigating their challenges and preventing unfair treatment. These challenges
show that although ILO has been successful in South Korea, there are still many gaps which
are necessary to be fulfilled for achievement of social justice of labour unions, work unions
and trade unions (Gruni, 2017).
In conclusion, the ILO plays the major role in promoting universal labour standards
and it has been effective in enforcement of those laws for the interest of labours. In South
Korea, the partnership with ILO has been successful as it enables the government in
recognising labour and trade unions rights. However, there are certain cons of this
relationship because there is lack of stricter implementation of labour laws and it requires
high investment to fund the operations.

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